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India unmasked: Theconstruction of a (nation)-stateSagarika DuttPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Sagarika Dutt (2002) India unmasked: Theconstruction of a (nation)-state, Contemporary Politics, 8:3, 241-247, DOI:10.1080/1356977022000025722

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Contemporary Politics, Volume 8, Number 3, 2002

Review article

India unmasked: the construction of a (nation)-state

STUART CORBRIDGE and JOHN HARRISS, Reinventing India. Liberalization, HinduNationalism and Popular Democracy (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000), 313 pp.,ISBN 0-7456-2076- 0 (hb), 0-7456-2077-9 (pb)AMRITA BASU and ATUL KOHLI (eds), Community Con¯ icts and the State in India(Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000), 287 pp., ISBN 0-19-565214- 2 (pb)NIRAJA GOPAL JAYAL, Democracy and the State (Oxford University Press, NewDelhi, 2001), 289 pp., ISBN 0-19-565612- 1 (pb)

These three books on post-independence India are all concerned with the stateand society, although they have been written with different objectives in mind.Corbridge and Harriss’s purpose in Reinventing India is to explain how and whyIndia has changed so much. They begin with the argument that India `was thesubject of a particular, very deliberate act of invention’ (p. xvii). The act theyrefer to is the drafting of the Indian constitution by the Constituent Assemblyset up in 1946. India was to be a modern democratic state. It was also to be asecular state although the original text of the preamble as adopted by theConstituent Assembly did not contain the word secular’ (or even socialist’).These two words were inserted by the forty-second constitutional amendmentact during emergency in 1976. This amendment was signi® cant as it changed thevery opening line of the preamble that now reads: `We the people of India,having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist SecularDemocratic Republic . . .’

Despite the emphasis on democracy, Corbridge and Harriss argue that Indiawas to be led by tall and inspiring men’, and foremost amongst them was ofcourse, Nehru. He had had a close relationship with Gandhi and became hissuccessor although his ideas about what India should be were not necessarilyshared by Gandhi. More importantly, as Corbridge and Harriss point out, noteveryone subscribed to Nehru’s ideas. Subhash Chandra Bose’s contributions, forexample, should not be forgotten. Also there were many who were sympathetic tothe ideas of the Hindu nationalists as well as to the right-wing and moreauthoritarian tendencies represented by Sardar Vallabbhai Patel. In fact, Patelhad initially had considerable in¯ uence over the Congress but his death in 1950ensured that this in¯ uence would not grow. The ® rst major period in India’shistory after independence was, therefore, the Nehruvian phase characterizedby the founding mythologies’ of modern India: socialism, secularism, federalismand democracy.

The raison d’eà tre of the modern state and the source of its legitimacy was itstask of bringing about development. However, as the authors point out, themodernizing, developmental mission of the new state . . . was imposed by an

ISSN 1356-9775 print/ISSN 1469-3631 online/02/030241-07 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/135697702200002572 2

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242 Review article

elite which was not notably democratic in its own attitudes or actions, andwhich had a history of negating expressions of a popular will’ (p. xviii). This isa serious criticism of the Indian state and underlies Corbridge and Harriss’sdiscussion of Indian politics from independence to the present day. The foundingfathers’ understandings of democracy and government had been shaped by theRaj and Westminster and the reforms introduced by the Government of IndiaActs of 1909, 1919 and 1935. However, parliamentary democracy was establishedin India on the basis of universal adult suffrage even before the country hadgone through an industrial revolution. The weakness of the bourgeoisie meantthat there had been no bourgeois revolution. The bourgeoisie had to compromisepolitically with rich peasants and other members of India’s intermediate classes’,and had to rely on the bureaucracy for carrying forward India’s development.Corbridge and Harriss draw on Sudipto Kaviraj and Partha Chatterjee’s ideas tomake this point. Kaviraj and Chatterjee attempt to explain the process of socialchange in modern India by using Gramsci’s idea of `passive revolution’, wherebysocial transformation does not result from a process within society, but is soughtto be achieved by administrative ® at. In the Indian context this is found in thework of the Constituent Assembly and the Planning Commission, as well as theNehru± Mahalanobis plan for India’s economic development. Planning, ratherthan the market, became the mantra, and there was no concerted attack upon theeconomic and political privileges of India’s richer farmers, monopoly industrialbourgeoisie and leading civil servants. This expensive and technocratic passiverevolution increased the power of the state in the name of development and/orthe imperatives of nation-building and weakened democracy. This resulted in abacklash from the backward castes (those identi® ed by the Backward ClassesCommission as being backward, socially and economically) and regional partiesin the eighties and nineties that undermined the Nehruvian design for India.However, Corbridge and Harriss’s well-researched book also notes the argumentpresented by Sunil Khilnani in his work, The Idea of India, that the Indianconstitution has exercised far-reaching in¯ uence over India’s subsequent history.

The reinvention of India, however, did not just take place in the ConstituentAssembly. That is an argument that anyone could have presented without toomuch dif® culty. Corbridge and Harriss see it as a continuous process, althoughphases of this process subsequent to the drafting of the constitution were notconsidered/planned as the earlier invention was. They were processes of struggleand negotiation. The authors write that this has come about partly by default,as a result of the failings of the modernizing mission of the Nehruvian state:these have created spaces for the reforming ambitions of certain economists andpoliticians, inspired by economic neoliberalism, and for the politics of Hindunationalism’ (p. xviii). We are, however, not talking about random ideas. Thearguments for economic reform had been nurtured for a long time by economistssuch as Jagdish Bhagwati and T. N. Srinivasan, who stood outside the centre-left mainstream of Indian economics and did not have an opportunity toimplement their ideas before 1991. Bhagwati argues that Nehru’s intentionswere good but that he put too much faith in economic doctrines that are nowdiscredited. The ideas of Hindu cultural nationalismÐ the establishment of a`Hindu state’Ð has an even longer history, going back to the Hindu reformmovements of the nineteenth century. The Hindu nationalists played an impor-tant part in the struggle for freedom from colonial rule, but were totally eclipsed

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Review article 243

by the modernizing nationalist elite. However, the Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh (RSS), which Corbridge and Harriss consider the most effective `grass-roots’ organization India has produced, nurtured both the ideas and the organiza-tional base for Hindu nationalism. Their efforts bore fruit in the nineties withthe rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political wing of the Hindunationalist family of organizations (the Sangh parivar) and the ideology ofHindutva. Hindu nationalism was ® lling a political vacuum created by thefailure of earlier nationalist elites to engage with the mass of the people, exceptin a paternalistic or modernizing mode, as well as the failures of the bourgeoispoliticians. These failures are also issues that Jayal and Basu and Kohli areinterested in. The point that Corbridge and Harriss make is that the Hindunationalists are elitist and the emergence of Hindu nationalism is an `elite revolt’.

India’s elites are heterogeneous and there are important con¯ icts of interestand aspiration amongst them. This point is also made by various authors in thevolume edited by Basu and Kohli that focuses on community con¯ icts and thestate in India. The Hindu nationalists’ attempt to reinvent India is in¯ uenced bytheir construction of the Hindu nation that mainly appeals to middle class andhigher caste Indians. But those who have been the objects of caste, class andgender oppression are more sceptical about the Hindu nationalist project. So, onthe one hand there are the Hindu nationalists and economic reformers promotingeconomic liberalization who are playing their part in the reinvention of Indiabut who represent the middle class and higher caste Indians, and on the otherhand there are a variety of social and political movements which are opposingthem. India has a long history of resistance to the established order by thosewho have been the objects of oppression. The nationalist movement succeededin silencing for a while these `movements from below’ but the introduction ofuniversal adult suffrage has opened up spaces for democratic politics andencouraged them to come forward with their own agendas. For example,Corbridge and Harriss write that:

across north India, the majority communities who make up the Back-ward Classes [the weaker `sections’ of the society generally consistingof the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes (recognized by the IndianConstitution as deserving special assistance in respect of education,employment etc.) and OBCs (Other Backward Classes)] are at lastbeginning to get a taste of power; they are acquiring a sense thatgovernment might be made to do their will, or that the police and thecourts might be encouraged to think twice before dismissing theirpetitions or pleas for protection (pp. 221± 2).

The reinvention of India that is going on, Corbridge and Harriss argue, istherefore a product of struggle rather than a planned process. And perhaps whatis most signi® cant about this process is that the poor are becoming more involvedin India’s politics and are pushing hard for a greater share of state resources andcontrol over the governmental structures that de® ne and regulate access to theprocesses of development.

The link between Corbridge and Harriss’s work and the volume edited byBasu and Kohli is the focus on identity politics. The chapters in CommunityCon¯ icts and the State in India analyse the links between new expressions ofcommunity identity, growing ethnic con¯ ict and the changing character of the

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Indian state. In Chapter 1, Kohli examines the rise and decline of self-determina-tion movements in India. The three movements he studies are those of theTamils in Tamil Nadu during the ® fties and sixties, of the Sikhs in the Punjabduring the eighties and of Muslims in Kashmir during the nineties. He arguesthat periodic demands for more control and power by a variety of ethnic groupsought to be expected in multicultural democracies, especially in the developingworld. However, the fate of these movements is determined by the nature of thepolitical context, two dimensions of which are very important: how well centralauthority is institutionalized and the willingness of the ruling groups to sharesome power and resources with mobilized groups. In her chapter on the politicsof ethnic violence in India, Parikh examines two sets of con¯ icts; the riots of1990 over the report/recommendations of the Mandal Commission (includingpositive discrimination for Other Backward Classes) and the 1992 Mandir( temple’) riots following the demolition of the mosque at Ayodhya by Hinduextremists. The question that she asks is whether these con¯ icts were caused bycaste and religious factors or whether other forces were also at work. She comesto the conclusion that political interests and strategies shaped the course of theMandal and Mandir riots, but they were successful because they struck a chordby appealing to religious sentiments amongst both Hindus and Muslims.

In Chapter 3, Jaffrelot discusses the politics of processions and Hindu±Muslim riots. He advances the hypothesis that the instrumentalization ofreligious processions by ideologically minded leaders largely explains the waythese rituals have become conducive to communal riots’ (p. 61). In Chapter 4,Zoya Hasan examines the dynamics of intercommunity con¯ icts in Uttar Pradeshand argues that political parties played a decisive role in precipitating con¯ ictsaround community and caste. Identities, she argues, are not given or unchanging,but were, rather, sharpened in response to the changing nature of state policiesand party strategies. Swamy’s chapter on the absence of mass political violencein South India is very interesting, and looks at the competition between theDravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(ADMK) in Tamil Nadu. A similar point is made by Corbridge and Harriss whoargue that:

on the whole a political system with reasonably stable and well-institutionalized parties, which compete for the votes of poorer and oflower-class people, is more likely to be responsive to their needs andaspirations, and to open up spaces of empowerment in an ongoingprocess of historical change (p. 223).

In Chapter 6, Widmalm argues that political violence in Jammu and Kashmirhas its roots in the acts of the political elites and the weaknesses of institutions,both in the bureaucracy and in party organizations. In Chapter 7, Dasguptadiscusses India’s north-eastern states but not so much in terms of their propensityfor con¯ ict and violence but rather the positive aspects of their institutionaldevelopment processes. Finally, in Chapter 8, Katzenstein, Mehta and Thakkardiscuss the rebirth of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. They argue that the ShivSena effectively exploited a discursive opportunity to link its own locallyproduced version of militant Hinduism with the politicized Hinduism that hasbeen rapidly spreading throughout north India since the mid-1980s’ (p. 213).They also argue that the discourse of Hindu nationalism was successful in

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Bombay and in Maharashtra because of the tightly structured and coercivecharacter of Shiv Sena as an organization operating in a political milieu that wasincreasingly fractured and undirected. All the authors, therefore, emphasize thepolitical dimensions of community con¯ icts. Most of them also reject primor-dialism and emphasize the constructed character of community identities. Buton the subject of the relationship between the state and community con¯ ictsthey have different views. Kohli argues that there is a strong connection betweenstate actions and community con¯ icts. On the other hand, Katzenstein, Mehtaand Thakkar give more importance to the organization and activities of ethnicand `communal’ parties and movements.

Basu and Kohli point out that many of the most serious and violent con¯ ictsthat India has experienced in recent years have been directed against the state.The state has been held responsible for injustices, for appeasing the Muslimminority, for discrimination against upper castes by implementing the MandalCommission’s recommendations, for discriminating between states while allocat-ing resources and interfering in state level politics. These are of course, randomcharges made against the state by a variety of groups ranging from Hindunationalists to leaders of regional movements. However, is there a theoreticalargument about the relationship between community con¯ icts and the state?Basu and Kohli suggest that there is. They argue that the growth of communitycon¯ icts has coincided with a deinstitutionalization of the Indian state, a themethat Corbridge and Harriss also deal with.

The normative and organizational pillars of the post-independence IndianstateÐ secularism, socialism and political bureaucraciesÐ have weakened. Onthe other hand, there has been an intensi® cation of democratic politics leadingto mobilization along multiple lines, which increases the scope for a variety ofpolitical con¯ icts. There is an important and interesting association (althoughunintended) here between the arguments presented by Corbridge and Harrissand those presented in Community Con¯ icts and the State in India, although theformer are not primarily interested in community con¯ icts but in political andeconomic trends and processes that have affected the reinvention of India.Underlying most of the individual case studies presented in Community Con¯ icts,and the speci® c arguments put forward by the different authors, there is a tacitacceptance of Corbridge and Harriss’s thesis that India has changed, often inways not anticipated by its founding fathers. However, some of them use termssuch as secularism as though they are not contested concepts. In fact, thediscussion of the rise and fall of democracy in Kashmir by Widmalm can befurther enriched by an understanding of the failures of the Nehruvian projectand the rise of authoritarianism in the guise/form of Indira Gandhi as discussedby Corbridge and Harriss. Nevertheless, the volume, in addition to analysingwhy community con¯ icts occur in India, makes an important contribution to theuncovering of the complexities of Indian political life, and of regional nuances,without which our understanding of Indian politics remains incomplete.

Jayal too appears to have the same idea as Corbridge and Harriss and pointsout that ® fty years after independence, many of the foundational principles ofthe Indian nation-state have been called into question, not least the very projectof the nation itself ’ (p. 1). Jayal focuses on three speci® c goals of socialtransformation that he argues were the product of a consensus negotiated andevolved in the course of the movement for freedom’ (p. 1), namely, secularism,

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welfare, and development. After reading Corbridge and Harriss, Jayal’s inten-tions may initially appear a bit shallow. He has obviously taken the Nehruvian/Congress rhetoric very seriously. He deplores the threat to secularism, theundermining of the welfare state and development that harms weaker sectionsof the society. However, he does make it clear at the outset that he knows thatthese goals were set by a modernizing elite inspired by the ideas of Britishliberalism and socialist trends within that tradition. Jayal uses three case studiesto explore the relationship between state, society and democracy in relation tothe achievement of each one of these goals.

The ® rst case study explores the welfare state using the problem of hungeras experienced in the Kalahandi district of Orissa since 1985. The second examinesthe secular state using the Shah Bano case relating to the rights of divorcedMuslim women, while the third attempts to deconstruct the developmental stateusing the Narmada Valley projects. These case studies are not the product ofnew research and the narratives tend to give too much detail so that anyonewho is familiar with them will probably skip large sections of the narrative.However, the main objective of the book is to attempt a theoretical analysis. Therelationship between the state and democracy, Jayal argues, is premised upon acertain view of state± society relations, encompassing questions of boundary, aswell as of state capacity and autonomy. Both the state and society are character-ized by internal differentiation and therefore an essentialist view of state andsociety should not be adopted. Boundaries between state and society are historic-ally and socially constructed and are constantly being redrawn. The Shah Banocase illustrates this well as the legislation in which it culminated rede® ned theboundary between the private and the public spheres as far as Muslim womenwere concerned; unfortunately it did not bene® t them as the central governmentwas more concerned about not upsetting the male leaders of the Muslimcommunity. This was a case of the state retreating.

On the other hand, in the Narmada case boundaries were redrawn allowinggreater state intervention. Unfortunately, however, in this case too the supportcame from powerful political and economic interests, some of which would bethe main bene® ciaries, and not the people (adversely) affected by the project.Jayal writes that:

the lack of autonomy of the state from powerful classes is easily inferredfrom the fact that these pro-dam counter-mobilizations have receivedpolitical backing from the State government and ® nancial support fromcommercial and industrial interests in the State. Conversely, the groupsof which the State is manifestly autonomous are the persons who havebeen affected in different ways by the dam: the of® cially recognizedProject Affected Persons being only one component of this category(pp. 225 ± 6).

He comes to the conclusion that the state’s autonomy from marginalized groupsmay be seen as a factor contributing to its capacity to evade its proclaimedcommitment to social justice and equity.

The Kalahandi case illustrates that the philosophy of state welfare in Indiawas, from its very inception, grounded in ideas of charity, benevolence, andpaternalism and not the recognition of rights of citizens. Jayal contends that`enfranchisement con® ned to a public sphere created by formal democratic

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institutions is intrinsically less challenging than the articulation of rights-claimsby an aware, even if unenfranchised, citizenry’ (p. 99). At the local level,however, the relationship between state and society becomes less paternalisticand more directly exploitative. The three case studies also demonstrate theimportance of the state’s capacity to accomplish its goals, on the one hand, andits autonomy from dominant interests in society, on the other. Thus, in Kalahandi,the state’s autonomy from the marginalized classes enabled it to renege on itsavowed goal of providing welfare; in the Shah Bano case its lack of autonomyfrom the Muslim community leadership affected its capacity to defend secularprinciples and also women’s rights. The Narmada valley project too illustratesthe state’s lack of autonomy as discussed above. Jayal ends his discussion witha comment on the institutional factors that inhibit democratization, some ofwhich are external to the state while others are internal to it. It is clear that heshares some of the concerns of Corbridge and Harriss and the authors who havecontributed to the volume edited by Basu and Kohli. He is anxious to make thepoint that discourses of democracy do not just emanate from the state; they alsoemanate from different forms of resistance to it.

SAGARIKA DUTT

Nottingham Trent University

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